coronavirus
HHS Secretary Alex Azar Is Very Bad At This
It's Your Sunday Rundown!
May 18, 2020 10:14 AM
It's another week in our Mad-Max-starter-kit world, and it's time to check-in on this week's Sunday show stupidity -- mainly on CNN's "State Of The Union" with Jake Tapper and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar.
Jake Tapper to Alex Azar: Why was the US hit harder by coronavirus? www.youtube.com
Tapper began by asking Azar about people returning to crowded places, and refusing to social distance or wear masks for "freedom," as fears of a surge of new cases rise. Azar answered this in a way that suggests he's setting the stage to blame the sick for their lot in regards to COVID-19:
AZAR: I think, in any individual instance, you're going to see people doing things that are irresponsible. That's part of the freedom that we have here in America. We can give guidance, as the surgeon general did. Part of this is going to be, if you're in crowded areas, and if you're in an area that has ongoing spread of community -- community spread of disease, there are steps you should take.
See, the problem with that answer is the same as the problem with anti-vaxxers: They are making personal health decisions that affect the community. If these conservative fuckheads wanted to spread COVID only between themselves to enjoy Golden Corral buffets again, no one would care. But the problem is, they have to interact with the rest of society and potentially spread this to people who have been responsible citizens. The "personal responsibility" crowd never wants to take responsibility for the consequences of their choices, but this time it could literally be the death of us all.
<p>
Azar then tried to tout the 10 million tests America has conducted as a great sign of progress, but Tapper quickly pointed out that 10 million in three and a half months in a country of 328 million is quite minuscule. Azar stuck to his talking points:</p><blockquote>
<strong>TAPPER</strong>: Secretary Azar, you were saying that our testing is now the model of the world, but I have to ask.
The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population. But the United States has also almost 30 percent of the world's officially reported coronavirus deaths.
You said back in January that -- quote -- "The risk is low. Our job is to work to keep it that way."
So, did the U.S. government fail? Why is this virus hitting our country so much harder than it's hitting other countries? <br>
<br>
<strong>AZAR</strong>: So, first, just in terms of the actual case counts, we are testing more than other countries or than other major countries, and so we're seeing a tremendous number of cases.
</blockquote><p>
Yet the most bewildering exchange happened when Azar implied that the reason Covid-19 has spread so much here was not the incompetence of Trump or conservative governors who didn't take it seriously, but actually on Americans themselves:</p><blockquote><strong>AZAR</strong>: Oh, Jake, you can't celebrate a single death. Every death is a tragedy. But the results could have been vastly, vastly worse.
It's also important to remember, Jake, as we -- as we face ... <br><br>
<strong>TAPPER</strong>: But it's worse for us than it is for anyone else. <br>
<br><strong>AZAR</strong>: No, that's actually not factually correct. When you look at mortality rates, that's simply not correct as a percent of diagnosed cases, Jake, that every death is tragic, but we have ... <br><br>
<strong>TAPPER</strong>: I'm just looking at the number of dead bodies.
<br><br>
<strong>AZAR</strong>: Every -- every -- every -- every death is tragic, but we have maintained our health care system -- our health care burden within the capacity of our system to actually deal with it.
Unfortunately, the American population is a very diverse and -- and it is a -- it is a population with significant unhealthy comorbidities that do make many individuals in our communities, in particular African-American, minority communities, particularly at risk here because of significant underlying disease health disparities and disease comorbidities.
And that is an unfortunate legacy of -- in our health care system that we certainly do need to address. </blockquote><p>Holy shit, that is some Grade-A victim blaming! It was so bad, in fact, that Tapper tried to help Azar correct his statement but he chose to double down instead:</p><blockquote><strong>TAPPER</strong>: I want to give you an opportunity to clear it up, because it sounded like you were saying that the reason that there are so many dead Americans is because we're unhealthier than the rest of the world.
And I know that's not what you meant. <br>
<br><strong>AZAR</strong>: Oh, no, I think that there's -- there -- we have significant -- we have a significantly disproportionate burden of comorbidities in the United States, obesity, hypertension, diabetes.
These are demonstrated facts that make -- that do make us at risk for any type of disease burden.</blockquote><p>Tapper tried again, and Azar finally realized what he said and turned on the Mike-Pence-style faux sincerity:</p><blockquote><strong>TAPPER</strong>: Sure, of course, but that doesn't mean it's the fault of the American people that ...
<br>
<br><strong>AZAR</strong>: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Jake ...
<br><br>
<strong>TAPPER</strong>: ... our government failed to take adequate steps in February. <br><br><strong>AZAR</strong>: Oh, no, Jake, please, please don't -- please don't distort -- no, this is not about fault. </blockquote><p>But if you think Azar just about blaming Americans for catching COVID was incompetent, his statement on how they will roll out a potential vaccine on CBS's "Face The Nation" will really throw you for a loop:</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e08e21f841fb16f0c8fdde24c95020dd"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6TMy2ILIPy8?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Azar says Trump administration aiming for 300 million vaccine doses by year's end</small>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TMy2ILIPy8" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</p><p><br></p><blockquote> <strong>AZAR</strong>: [W]hat we're doing is wringing the inefficiency out of the development process to make the development side faster to get to safe and effective vaccines. And at the same time, we're gonna scale up commercial-sized manufacturing and produce hundreds of millions of doses at risk. <strong>They may not pan out. They might not prove to be safe and effective. But we'll have it so we could begin administration right away.</strong></blockquote><p>You are gonna make Americans be the guinea pigs for a vaccine before it's safe, because Trump wants to say he rolled out a cure? This is Trump's response to coronavirus: rushed, irresponsible and detached entirely from all human costs. </p><p>Maybe in this instance, we should wait until we have a safe vaccine, considering Trump's incompetence. I'm not eager to be part of Trump's "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment">Tuskegee Experiment</a>" remake for his hollow "win."<br></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<a href="https://media2.giphy.com/media/l2JegXxMqQv9FmgCc/giphy.gif?cid=2fb0ca7616a46edf8f24cb31fd1bdc74b7c0de0f2967ab67&rid=giphy.gif" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI4NjgyNy9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNTc5NjI0MH0.kkHScp4vqzYfHJDw_YPeWh0b1dkahVu5_W6XpfXdf1w/img.gif?width=980" id="5f090" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="799d7771405c6f04e6f62b3c0c2c01d3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"></a>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/season-12-the-simpsons-12x5-l2JegXxMqQv9FmgCc" target="_blank">Giphy</a>
</small>
</p><p>In conclusion, Alex Azar is bad. </p><p><strong>Wonkette is fully funded by readers like YOU. If you love Wonkette, SUPPORT WONKETTE FINANCIALLY.</strong></p><p></p><p><a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons</a>.</p><p></p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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2020 presidential election
Joe Biden Wants To Be Your FDR, So, You Know, We'd Take That
Anybody got a line on some polio?
May 12, 2020 03:00 PM
With the daily increases in coronavirus deaths and Donald Trump's escalating meltdowns, it's easy to forget there's also a presidential election going on, or would be, if things were normal, which just reminds you again how non-normal all this is. But while Trump continues lying about the fantastic job he's doing, Joe Biden is busily doing what presidential candidates are supposed to do: getting ready for the fall, and, he hopes, getting read to president come next January.
And as the dual health and economic crisis has played out, it's starting to look like Joe Biden, Mr. Moderate, is thinking about all the things that will need fixing if he defeats Trump (provided Trump doesn't launch the entire US nuclear arsenal at coastal US cities), and is inclined to do some serious Franklin D. Roosevelt, New Deal-style responses to get America back in shape. As reporter Gabriel Debenedetti puts it, Biden's original centrist pitch, a promise of a return to the pre-Trump norm, seems "almost moot" now.
And so suddenly Joe Biden is talking about far bigger plans than his "first day" goals of rejoining the Paris climate agreement, issuing executive orders to put ethics back in government, and pushing for the Equality Act to protect LGBTQ rights. Now he's talking about big government spending on green energy and infrastructure, payments to families, student loan forgiveness, and the like. He's consulting regularly with Elizabeth Warren and Jay Inslee, and talking about creating "a 100,000-plus worker Public Health Jobs Corps and the doubling of the number of OSHA investigators to protect employees amid the pandemic." And isn't that some neat stuff!
<p>Honestly, after four years of Donald Trump just making shit up as he goes along, usually with the main goal of getting the Deplorables excited and keeping rich donors happy, it's a huge relief to know that Joe Biden gets two daily briefings via video chat, on the pandemic and the economy, and then spends much of the rest of the day on the phone: </p><blockquote>He rings both Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to hear their updates on recovery legislation and to gently share his priorities when he finds it appropriate. He calls Democratic leaders in some of the hardest-hit spots, checking in with governors, including New York's Andrew Cuomo, California's Gavin Newsom, Michigan's Gretchen Whitmer, and Washington's Inslee, and mayors like Los Angeles's Eric Garcetti. At times he talks policy with Warren.<br><br>And after a year of uncomfortable distance, Biden has been phoning Obama for guidance — on unifying Democrats, on choosing a running mate, and on campaigning and communicating amid the pandemic. The pair now speaks with such frequency that some people close to the former president are starting to get amused.</blockquote><p>And he's thinking big about what's needed, comparing the recovery from the pandemic to a wartime effort, and in wartime, you don't worry about deficits. I love this anecdote: </p><blockquote>Recently, on a private call with Colorado-based donors, a disenchanted Republican told Jill Biden, Joe's wife and a prominent campaign presence, that he trusted her husband but feared he'd tacked too far left and wasn't sufficiently concerned about "the pain" of the national deficit and debt. Jill, an English professor, replied, "I agree, there's going to be so much pain that Joe has to address — it's going to be the physical pain, the emotional pain, the social pain, the economic pain that this country is going to go through." She ignored the part about the deficit.</blockquote><p>And if Joe Biden still positions himself as a centrist, that's with a recognition that the center of Democratic politics has shifted, says Debenedetti, noting that even in the primary, many parts of Biden's platform were to the left of where he and Obama were in 2008. And in this crisis, says policy director Stef Feldman, Biden is seeing opportunities for government to make a big difference for the better: </p><blockquote>What I've heard the vice-president say over and over again is this crisis is shining a bright, bright light on so many systemic problems in our country, and so many inequities. It is exacerbating and shining a light on environmental-justice issues, racial inequalities, so many other problems.</blockquote><p>It's also reassuring to read that Biden consults regularly with former FDA commissioner David Kessler, and that he <em>gets science, </em>even though he doesn't even have an uncle at MIT. Kessler says, "He wants me to engage in the scientific details because it helps him — he can take what we're saying, and it helps him formulate a policy." And all without ever watching Fox News! And for all of Biden's love of bipartisanship, says his friend Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware), Biden is also very mindful of just how unhelpful Republicans in Congress were when it came to the 2009 stimulus bill, which Biden was in charge of managing. And if Democrats can manage to take the Senate this fall, so much the better. </p><blockquote>Recently, friends have noticed that Biden is talking less about this and more about policies that Mitch McConnell's Senate GOP would be unlikely to go for no matter what — like new environmental investments and oversight. The crisis, Biden believes, has expanded "the state of what is possible, now that the American people have seen both the role of government and the role of frontline workers," said [former national-security adviser Jake] Sullivan. "He believes he has a more compelling case to make that this is the agenda that needs to get passed."</blockquote><p>As for a possible cabinet, Biden is focused on winning the election first, but he has some people in mind. God help us, he does read Tom Friedman, so he's aware of that <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/tom-friedman-wants-a-biden-cabinet-that-looks-like-the-inside-of-tom-friedmans-head" target="_blank">dumb Friedman fantasy</a> about a cabinet full of Friedman's favorite Davos speakers. But it appears the only concrete suggestion from the column Biden is considering is the possibility of naming a few potential cabinet members during the campaign. So no, probably no Mitt Romney for secretary of State. </p><p>But he does have at least a mental short list, it seems: </p><blockquote>"If the Lord Almighty said, 'Joe, I tell you what: You have to decide in three hours what your Cabinet is or you're going to be bounced out of the race,' I could write down who could be in the Cabinet. There are at least two or three people qualified for every one of those positions," he confided to donors on a mid-April Zoom call. </blockquote><p>There's a lot more in the piece, which is probably worth burning one of your free monthly <em>New York</em> articles to read; if you were worried that Joe Biden was going to insist on a muddy moderate path, this piece may reassure you. I'm happy to see him talking about the power of government to make American life fairer, and of the need to respond to a huge crisis like the pandemic with proportionately serious government action. </p><p>Now if we could get him to commit to more of those cool old WPA murals. </p><p>[<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/joe-biden-presidential-plans.html" target="_blank">New York</a>]</p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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coronavirus
CDC Estimates Minus-1000 Drop From 2,000 To 3,000 Daily COVID-19 Deaths By June
But just think how great the economy will be!
May 04, 2020 02:47 PM
The New York Times reports today that even while Donald Trump is urging states to "carefully" cast aside public health measures so the economy will be all better in time to get him reelected, his own administration
is privately projecting a steady rise in the number of cases and deaths from the coronavirus over the next several weeks, reaching about 3,000 daily deaths on June 1, according to an internal document obtained by The New York Times, nearly double from the current level of about 1,750
Here's the relevant chart from the full briefing document:
That sounds pretty bad, at least until you remember that people die all the time, that the old and the frail are a drain on the economy, and it's not like Americans have ever made big changes to our way of life just because 3,000 people died in one day. We could go on about the possible lessons of a day when 3,000 lives were snuffed out, but the 9/11 memorial museum is still closed because of the virus.
Because the 9/11 memorial hates our freedoms, probably.
<p>According to the <em>Times</em>, the projections,</p><blockquote>based on modeling by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and pulled together in chart form by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, forecast about 200,000 new cases each day by the end of the month, up from about 25,000 cases now.</blockquote><p>The forecast seems maybe a bit at odds with Trump's calls for states to "reopen" and his encouragement of the organized rightwing efforts to pressure governors to ignore the <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/georgia-voters-are-rejecting-gops-pro-insider-trading-pro-coronavirus-spread-platform" target="_blank">majority of Americans </a>who think we <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/yahoo-news-you-gov-coronavirus-poll-most-americans-reject-antilockdown-protests-124259347.html" target="_blank">shouldn't rush back</a> into the fever swamps just yet. The CDC warns that the worst is yet to come, especially in states where the outbreak hasn't been too bad so far. That doesn't mean they'll be spared, just that they've wasted the time they could have been using to get ready, but now, "There remains a large number of counties whose burden continues to grow."</p><p>That lines up with data on the outbreak that the Times has generated, too: </p><blockquote>Some states that have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html" target="_blank" title="">partially reopened</a> are still seeing an increase in cases, including Iowa, Minnesota, Tennessee and Texas, according to Times data. Indiana, Kansas and Nebraska also are seeing an increase in cases and reopened some businesses on Monday. Alaska has also reopened and is seeing a small number of increasing cases [...] <br><br>The situation has devolved most dramatically in parts of rural America that were largely spared in the early stages of the pandemic. As food processing facilities and prisons have emerged as some of the country's largest case clusters, the counties that include Logansport, Ind., South Sioux City, Neb., and Marion, Ohio, have surpassed New York City in cases per capita.</blockquote><p>Worse, it's beginning to look like the social distancing we've done so far has had only limited benefits, since too many places haven't done anything at all. Here's Trump's former FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, <a href="https://slack-redir.net/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Ftranscript-scott-gottlieb-discusses-coronavirus-on-face-the-nation-may-3-2020%2F&v=3" target="_blank">appearing yesterday</a> on CBS's "Face the Nation."</p><blockquote>While mitigation didn't fail, I think it's fair to say that it didn't work as well as we expected [...] We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we're just not seeing that.</blockquote><p>And now the wingnuttosphere is proclaiming social distancing a failure, without mentioning the part where they all <a href="https://www.wonkette.com/all-lives-matter-an-awful-lot-when-youre-protesting-while-white" target="_blank">went and stood next to each other on purpose.</a> As we all know from disaster movies, nothing good comes from ignoring the scientists' warnings in the first act. </p><p>Now, it's also possible, just barely, that the document was leaked as part of an attempt to make the experts look like alarmists and to discredit them further. The White House is already antisocial distancing itself from the report in the <em>Times </em>with a <a href="https://twitter.com/PaulaReidCBS/status/1257360064459034631" target="_blank">statement </a>saying the document isn't <em>officially </em>official. Let's take a look at this nondenial denial!</p><blockquote>This is not a White House document nor has it been presented to the Coronavirus Task Force or gone through interagency vetting. This data is not reflective of any of the modeling done by the task force or data that the task force has analyzed. </blockquote><p>Note that the statement <em>doesn't </em>say it's not a real CDC document, or that the analysis is bad; only that it's different from the modeling Mike Pence's task force has done. Yes, that's the modeling the <em>Washington Post </em><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/34-days-of-pandemic-inside-trumps-desperate-attempts-to-reopen-america/2020/05/02/e99911f4-8b54-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html" target="_blank">reported this weekend</a> has consistently been unduly optimistic compared to other forecasts, and to actual outcomes, although the White House disputed that, too. But back to the denial: </p><blockquote>The President's phased guidelines to open up America again are a scientific driven approach that the top health and infectious disease experts in the federal government agreed with. The health of the American people remains President Trump's top priority and that will continue as we monitor the efforts by states to ease restrictions.</blockquote><p>We're just going to go with HOLLOW MORDANT LAUGHTER for that part, the end. </p><p>[<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/us/coronavirus-updates.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage#link-7b42d0f5" target="_blank">NYT </a>/ <a href="https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/6926-mayhhsbriefing/af7319f4a55fd0ce5dc9/optimized/full.pdf#page=1" target="_blank">CDC "Situation Update"</a> / <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/34-days-of-pandemic-inside-trumps-desperate-attempts-to-reopen-america/2020/05/02/e99911f4-8b54-11ea-9dfd-990f9dcc71fc_story.html" target="_blank">WaPo</a>]</p><p>Yr Wonkette is supported entirely by reader donations! 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SEAN HANNITY SHALL NOT STANDETH YOUR CRASS LIBELISMS, RAPSCALLION NEW YORK TIMES
Sean Hannity has never downplayed coronavirus, not once.
April 30, 2020 12:22 PM
America, Sean Hannity has HAD ENOUGH of the dishonest media's unfair treatment of him. So he hired a lawyer, the famous Gawker-destroying Charles Harder, to send a nastygram warning the New York Times it had better retract three opinion pieces that supposedly defamed Hannity by opining that he had downplayed the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic. And if they didn't retract? Consequences would never be the same. The 12-page letter accused columnists Ginia Bellafante, Ben Smith, and Kara Swisher of all sorts of horrible libelslanders, saying the columns were part of an "ongoing campaign to personally attack Mr. Hannity by mischaracterizing and making false statements with respect to his coverage of the coronavirus pandemic."
For good measure, Harder also complained the paper had disregarded statements by "Democratic Party politicians and Democratic Party-friendly media outlets" which he said had also minimized the pandemic. WHAR BILL DE BLASIO? WHAR NANCY PELOSI DANCING ALL OVER CHINATOWN? WHAR ANDERSON COPPER? [sic] And in a real blaze of seriousness, Harder even wondered why the Times hadn't jumped all over Dr. Anthony Fauci when he supposedly "minimized" the threat in interviews in January and February, by saying the virus was not a widespread threat at that moment. (Fauci carefully pointed out that was subject to change if the virus spread.)
The Times, to its credit, replied it had no intention of retracting the columns or apologizing, in a letter that might not reach the rhetorical heights of Gen. Anthony McAuliffe's "Nuts!" note or the Cleveland Browns' "Some asshole is signing your name to stupid letters." But 'tis enough, 'twill serve.
<p>
And because the dumbth these days is seldom a solo act, the Daily Beast <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-encouraged-sean-hannity-to-go-after-the-new-york-times-for-its-coronavirus-coverage?ref=scroll" target="_blank">reported yesterday</a> that Hannity had a good friend commiserating with him about how unfair the press is, and encouraging him to sue those rat bastards is what he oughta do, sue 'em! That would of course be the "president" of the United States, who is himself in a perpetual lather about how media rats are always making him look bad by quoting him verbatim.
</p><blockquote>
According to two people familiar with the matter, Trump had privately gossiped with Hannity—a prominent informal adviser to this president and one of Trump's preferred late-night phone buddies—about the Fox host's desire to make an example of the <em>Times</em>. Though President Trump thought it was a good idea for Hannity to explore legal action against the news outlet, one of the two sources stressed that it "wasn't the president's idea" for Hannity and his attorney to shoot off a threatening letter to the <em>Times</em>. Trump did not order or direct Hannity to do so, this source said.
</blockquote><p>
So don't you go saying Trump told Hannity to sue the <em>Times</em>; he just thought it was a good idea, like <em>looking into</em> whether lung-bleaching has medical benefits. One must be precise about these things. The story also notes that Trump has, like a common Trump, been musing plenty about suing various media outlets, and wouldn't it be great if everyone sued the <em>Lügenpresse</em> too?
</p><blockquote>
A third person with knowledge of the situation said that for the past month the president had repeatedly complained to advisers that he and other Trumpworld figures should consider lawsuits for all the "lies" news outlets have supposedly told about them during the coronavirus crisis. This source said they were aware of an instance when Trump directly conveyed the sentiment to Hannity and at least one other conservative media personality.
</blockquote><p>
Hannity, as you might expect, is astonished and shocked that the Daily Beast would make such groundless claims, so when he was asked for comment and clarification, Hannity wrote back denying completely different things:
</p><blockquote>
Hannity, in a statement to The Daily Beast, insisted that he had not spoken to Trump specifically about Harder or Monday's letter. (The Daily Beast wasn't planning on reporting that, and the cable-news host did not respond to additional inquiries asking him to weigh in on our actual reporting.)<br>
<br>
Hannity also added, unprompted, that he was never represented by <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-seethes-about-michael-cohens-early-release-and-new-tell-all-book" target="_blank">Michael Cohen</a>, even though The Daily Beast did not ask him any questions about Trump's <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/michael-cohens-to-potential-clients-stay-away-from-corey-lewandowski" target="_blank">former fixer</a> on Tuesday.<br>
<br>
"Fake news," Hannity said. "I never spoke with the president nor consulted with him about my attorney's letter to The New York Times or who I should hire. And as previously stated, Michael Cohen was never my attorney." </blockquote><p>Truly a classic of the nondenial denial genre. </p><p>
As for the actual accusations in Harder's very stern letter, they seem pretty stupid to me, though damn it, Jim, I'm a doktor (of rhetoric), not a lawyer. But Wonkette's Liz Dye sure is, and she wrote a<a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2020/04/sean-hannity-puts-new-york-times-in-its-place-with-a-very-sternly-worded-letter/?rf=1" target="_blank"> fine piece making fun of it all</a> at Above the Law, so go read it!
</p><p>
Hell, Hannity's <a href="https://hannity.com/sean-demands-retraction-and-apology" target="_blank">own website</a> was confused about what was up, as Liz points out. The Hannity site's headline originally proclaimed "HANNITY SAYS ENOUGH: Sean Sues the New York Times..." which wasn't the case; that's now been downgraded to "Sean Demands Retraction and Apology." But the story, after five days, still includes this misspelled and ungrammatical lede: </p><blockquote>Something that has been long overdo, Sean Hannity has finally demanded a retraction and apology from the New York Times for their irresponsible and shameful misreporting…</blockquote><p>The biggest gripe seems to be that an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/nyregion/coronavirus-jjbubbles-joe-joyce.html" target="_blank">April 18 column</a> by Ginia Bellafante implied that Hannity's dismissals of the virus's seriousness may have influenced a regular viewer who took a cruise and died from COVID-19. But wait, says Harder, the cruise embarked on March 1, while Hannity's Fox News segment calling coverage of the pandemic a "hoax" didn't air until eight days later, so that's LIBELS. At least as long as you ignore<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/30/hannity-must-go/" target="_blank"> all the other times,</a> listed by <em>Washington Post</em> media columnist Erik Wemple, where Hannity <em>also </em>downplayed the outbreak. </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a8cc725e9c95b49531968b13afacf63e"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DftLWzKEwrU?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Opinion | Sean Hannity wants to rewrite history on Fox's coronavirus coverage. He can't.</small>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">
<a href="https://youtu.be/DftLWzKEwrU" target="_blank">youtu.be</a>
</small>
</p><p>Then again, Hannity called the guy "Erik Pimple," so we guess Hannity wins, the end. </p><p>[<a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-encouraged-sean-hannity-to-go-after-the-new-york-times-for-its-coronavirus-coverage?ref=scroll" target="_blank">Daily Beast</a> / <a href="https://abovethelaw.com/2020/04/sean-hannity-puts-new-york-times-in-its-place-with-a-very-sternly-worded-letter/?rf=1" target="_blank">Above the Law</a> / <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/18/nyregion/coronavirus-jjbubbles-joe-joyce.html" target="_blank">NYT</a>]</p><p>Yr Wonkette is supported entirely by reader donations. Help us keep the servers humming and the writers paid. And if you're sheltering in place, here's our <a href="https://amzn.to/33mKzZe" target="_blank">Amazon linky</a>, too.</p><p></p><form name="donation" method="post" class="donation-form"><p class="subheadline">How often would you like to donate?</p><div class="form-row row--plan"><label class="plan-type__label"><input type="radio" name="plan_type" value="once" class="plan-type" required="" checked> Just once
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